


lights will guide you home

by helsinkibaby



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M, Het, Pre Relationship, Romance, Spoilers, What child is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 09:02:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16870039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helsinkibaby/pseuds/helsinkibaby
Summary: While on stakeout in Gibbs’s living room at Christmas, Nick wakes up to a realisation.





	lights will guide you home

**Author's Note:**

> For Dwayne prides Christmas prompt list day 4 Christmas lights. A day late but however!

Working undercover for eight years, where a sound sleep could be the difference between waking and not, it doesn’t take much to wake Nick up. It doesn’t matter if he’s in his bed at home, in someone else’s bed, asleep at his desk or on Gibbs’s couch like he is right now, he can be wide eyed awake in less than a second. 

But when Ellie’s voice permeates his consciousness, he sets a new record even for him. 

It doesn’t take him long to figure out that she’s not talking to him; her voice is too quiet for that. No, she’s standing in the window of Gibbs’s house, in front of the Christmas tree, the baby they’re currently guarding nestled snugly in her arms. She’s tilted the baby’s body towards the tree, is leaning down towards him, their cheeks almost touching. There’s a smile on her lips as she points out each ornament and light and the kid is completely ago, eyes wide, mouth open, looking like he’s hanging on her every word. 

Nick can’t exactly blame him. 

Not when the lights twinkling on the tree are reflecting in Ellie’s eyes and Nick’s known, has always known, that his team mate is an objectively beautiful woman. 

This is just one of the times that he’s extra aware of it and he feels warmth slowly unfurling deep in her stomach, spreading through his chest and emerging as a smile on his lips. 

The urge to stand, to cross the room and stand beside her is magnet strong. He know, though, because he knows himself, that if he were to stand beside her, he wouldn’t be content to leave it at that. He’d slide an arm around her shoulders, pull her close against his side. Maybe her head would fall against his shoulder and he’d be able to turn his head, brush his lips over her hair. The baby would look at him rather than the tree, reach his little fist towards Nick and Nick would lend him his little finger, just to see the look on Ellie’s face when she saw them together. 

It would be everything Nick never realised he wanted until this moment and for so many reasons, he knows it can’t have it. 

Not now. 

Not yet. 

So he stays where he is, but he doesn’t take his eyes off her. 

He can’t.


End file.
